MinkFlamingos

Sep 9 The Weekly Peanut, Issue 134

Oh, September. Bless you. I know we're only a week in, but you're already shaping up to be the best month we've had in ages.

Mickey Pancakes from Daddy

Holiday weekends AKA weekends after which I'm dropping off my kid at school wondering how on earth stay at home moms do it. Saturday we had a (too brief! but) wonderful visit from our Canadian friends, Mary and Ryan. I felt terrible about how cramped the condo was for playing (and it was too alternately muggy/rainy to take the kids to the park). There was still some play time involved before a tasty meal at The Coop.

Ryan has a new puppy back at home. Daphne showed Ryan proper dog-walking techniques.

We've been so terrified of jinxing the house deal we held off on doing most of our shopping until the last minute. HUD in hand, we ventured out into the wild furniture unknown with the kiddo on Sunday. Not without a sassy egg breakfast at Se7en Bites first.

We went to outlets and clearance centers, but in the end (especially with the glorious LABOR DAY SALES) we ended up bouncing back and forth between Ashley and Rooms to Go. We went to plenty of other more bougie places, but I'm happy to report that, FOR ONCE, I do not have expensive tastes in this area (furniture, that is).

Daphne is relatively easy to please. She really was a trooper, considering we were at furniture stores pretty much the WHOLE day. Once we were buckling down to purchase we finally broke out the iPad, but mostly she enjoyed herself. Especially throwing herself on bean bag chairs or playing "hide and seek" in couch cushions.

Daphne: Stealth mode. We planned to spend Labor Day itself playing with friends at the Magic Kingdom. D opted to wear what we now call her Princess Daphne dress (from picture day, designed with Optimum Twirl Coefficient in mind). We met up with D's friend, Maddie, in the parking lot and made our way (ferry bound) to the gates just in time for Welcome Show. Maddie is a big Alice fan (and was dressed accordingly!) so we beelined to the teacups to be first in line to spend time with that lovely young lady.

The girls killed time waiting by meeting new friends and chasing each other around in circles. Before we knew it, Alice appeared around the corner, and she wasn't alone! D was a little awestruck at first, holding my hand and looking to me for what to do. From the moment Alice offered her hand to Daphne, though, Mommy was forgotten. Imagine the joy and excitement on my kid's face when Alice and the Rabbit asked Daphne if she'd like to go for a ride on the teacups.

My heart...

I have no idea what was discussed, but every few seconds they would all throw their hands up in the air. I think the dormouse eventually got brought up (D loves to watch him pop up in the middle of the teapot).

Already the day had far exceeded any hopes or expectations I could ever haveI know I've said it before, but Disney continues to outdo itself every time I think we couldn't have a more magical experience. I just keep pinching myself. How fortunate are we that Daphne gets to look back on these moments for the rest of her life? But our magical time with Alice and the White Rabbit wasn't over yet.

Alice led the girls back to her meeting spot (I figured, ok, one last photo op), but instead our MAD little party just kept going. First everybody did some bunny - errr White Rabbit-- hops.

Then everybody took turns "twirling like teacups."

They joined hands and twirled and bunny hopped in a circle together.

In case you were wondering, if D could design paradise, it would be something like this. By then the line had grown considerably, and I was feeling my share of "monopolizing the characters" guilt, so Maddie's mom and I started gently steering the girls toward saying their thank you's and goodbye hugs.

Maddie and Alice had other ideas. Suddenly it was a "tickle White Rabbit" marathon. This may have been Daphne's favorite part. You could hear her squeals of joy from Adventureland, I'm sure.

Alice and Maddie decided that Maddie's White Rabbit Tsum Tsum needed to be delicately placed and left on White Rabbit's head. I gave up trying to steer the kids away at that point, I was laughing too hard. Daphne brought up doing Inside Out faces. Alice was a champ. Rabbit continued to balance a Tsum on his head.

The Tsum fell and the chaos over the fallen Tsum had me laughing so hard I actually did fall over. Don't worry, camera was protected.

Alice and Maddie tried to teach D how to have an imaginary tea party. D was still making her Inside Out faces.

Ok, really time to give other kids a chance to join the party. Group hugs all around.

I don't have the words to express how I felt walking away from the tea party. Overwhelming gratitude. Joy. Amazement at Alice and the White Rabbit somehow keeping pace with our crazy kids. Bless you. We let the kids call the shots for a while. Dumbo playground? Oh yes.

We usually have to lie to the girls and tell them they are closing the playground to get them out of there to go on the ride itself.

Awwwwwww.

Well I be done seen 'bout ev-rything...

Maddie is a big Pan fan. We accompanied her to visit with her favorite Lost Boy. D remains vehemently disinterested in boys. I suppose I can't complain. I walked up with her, and despite Pan's best efforts to engage her in conversation, she kept her face hidden in my neck. So we watched Maddie and Pan play hide and seek. D chuckled. By the time we were leaving she was willing to offer Pan a tentative smile and high five. Given another 5 minutes and she probably would have been playing, too, but THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE AT THE PARKS, NOT JUST YOU, KIDDO. We met up with Mellie to go visit Fairytale Hall. I suppose the downside to having meetings like the one we had at the Teacups is that D thinks all meetings should be on that level of crazy.

Cindy did her best to keep up with the tsums hiding in the curtain and the manic twirling, but she seemed a bit relieved to be on familiar group hug territory at the end. Over to Rapunzel.

Oh, the beautiful chaos. I suppose we should be grateful we left the hall without any window treatments falling down. We hoped Philharmagic would have a calming effect.

It was starting to rain and our kids were getting cranky, so we said our goodbyes to Mellie...

and headed toward the monorail. We had a whole car to ourselves and both girls got to have their own window.

On the drive home, I discovered that Gooble and Joy are apparently good friends. Joy was telling Gooble he really didn't have to be so sad all the time, and Gooble was telling Joy that sometimes things are spooky but you don't have to be scared of them. I am seriously loving this kid's imagination.

On Tuesday we closed on our new home. Amen. We're hoping to get everything moved in over the weekend. In the meantime we had to buy a refrigerator. Goldilocks entertained herself on the mattresses while Daddy managed that.

Every mattress in the store. At this time next week I plan to be lounging in my hot tub watching a deer and sand hill crane meander across my backyard. Fingers crossed.